Celebrating My Book with an NYU Press Blog Post: "Muslim Women's Dress"

Jessica Muhammad

Three years ago I told you about a new book I was writing with Dawn-Marie Gibson, a scholar of the Nation of Islam in the UK. We completed the book last week (due out in July). That same week, I wrote a short piece for Women's History Month for the NYU Press blog: "Muslim Women's Dress, a Tool of Liberation." It gives you a tiny taste of what's to come. The woman pictured in the NYU Press blog is Jessica Muhammad, one of my amazing community mothers featured in the book and a talk that I am giving next week at Harvard. Thanks to everyone for their prayers, support, and assistance.

Speaking at Harvard

Almost two years ago I gave a talk at Harvard featuring Sandra El-Amin, the amazing teacher (and later director) at Mohammed Schools who in many ways trained me to do what I do. I return to Harvard on March 26, 2014 to again share fascinating narratives of women currently and formerly in the Nation of Islam. This time Jessica Muhammad, another one of my beautiful community mothers, will be among the women highlighted. I also feature Jessica in an NYU Press blog post.

Black Is Beautiful, Uh-huh!

When given the opportunity to make my own images, they are black and Muslim!

These words make up the chorus of an audiobook that I play for my sons, ages 2 and 4.

When I received a vintage Fisher Price fire truck in the mail, before presenting the gift to my sons, I painted the firefighter's face brown.

Have I become my father, whose cry to his daughter sounds as vivid today as it did 25 years ago: "But Baby, your hair is beautiful!" His desperate words now echo softly through me. 

It is an understatement to say that we've come a long way since the shouts of Black Pride in the '60s, but even now, the books and toys I regale upon my boys are overwhelmingly shadowed by white faces. How then could I miss the chance to paint a white face brown?

I am a daughter of the Nation of Islam. I carry the legacy with gratitude and wisdom, thanks to my parents, Imam W. D. Mohammed, and my loving community.

The other day I had the opportunity to present my research on women in the Nation of Islam to a small crowd in Eugene, Oregon. After sharing with them how much racism made little girls like my mom feel--she would sit in the tub for hours after playing in the hot sun to wash away the sun's mark--my favorite part was to share how transformed my mother was by the message Black is Beautiful:

           It was one of the most beautiful and refreshing ideas that ever came to my mind.

           It was almost like my mind was being unshackled—

           To know that black was beautiful

           That I’m beautiful

           That brown was beautiful

           That kinky hair could be beautiful

           Thick lips could be beautiful

           And it was wonderful because this was me.

And while I think it's absolutely important to teach and remind about our history, our suffering, and our strength in unbearable times, I am always relieved to wrap things up with a spirit of love and growth. Thanks to Imam W.D. Mohammed, I was able to do that in one of my talks to the mostly white crowd.

I began the talk with a reading from Dreams from My Father. Already I love this book because it is indescribably relevant, discerning, and poetic, but I love it even more that it gave me an opportunity to make the case for why black nationalism and Islam are critical to the souls of black folk, and brown and white folk too: Barack Obama spoke about it, and considerably.

"Ever since the first time I'd picked up Malcolm X's autobiography, I had tried to untangle the twin strands of black nationalism, arguing that nationalism's affirming message--of solidarity and self-reliance, discipline and communal responsibility--need not depend on hatred of whites" (197).

Obama's cogent analysis of the appeal but ultimate ineffectiveness of Black nationalism evoked again and again the spirit and wisdom of Imam W.D. Mohammed. He was a man before his time. 

Twenty years before Imam Mohammed had begun the journey to teach and model Obama's gut belief, that one could adore kinky hair and love blue eyes too:   

"How are we going to hate this world? How are we going to hate America and hate America’s progress and hate the white man?  No! We should hate wrong whether it’s in a black man or a white man, or a red man or any man. Whether it’s in your family, or in your friend, or in your neighbor.  Hate wrong!  Hate evil!  But don’t hate people. That’s against Islam."

Imam W.D. Mohammed had the awesome task of introducing his community to the correct understanding of God while also addressing the yearning that brought them to a black nationalist version of Islam in the first place. With wisdom he connected the two: the inherent nature to seek the Divine and the soul’s demand for a beautiful, dignified human identity.

“You want to make a people superior to you?  Hold them back, and eventually they will be superior to you. Why?  Because they are going to have a superior motivation working for them, and that motivation is to measure up to the dignity that God created them for.”

The Muslim is “obligated by God’s expectations.  God expects me to do more.  God expects me to assume more responsibility.  God expects me to measure up or qualify for more responsibility…You know that a man struggling to get a grade “A” from God will definitely rise higher than a man striving to get an “A” from a white man.”

Imam W. D. Mohammed dedicated his life to nurturing the highest motivation for human excellence: the soul’s innate pursuit of God-given excellence.

"I am trying to get African Americans who still have the burden on them of [finding their] identity…to go back to your better identity.  The better identity that God gave us is not our racial identity…or our national identity.  The better identity for Muslims in Islam according to our Holy Book –[the identity that] God gave us—is our human identity, which is to be understood as the aim for excellence in the human nature….God created us for human excellence, and this is our common heritage.  We should care more about this common heritage than we do the color of our skin or the nations that we come from….The racial classifications are temporary.  They are not going to last forever.  The national classifications are not going to last forever.  What God will receive is our human soul and its excellence."

Focusing on this inherent, God-given potential, Imam W. D. Mohammed accomplished two things.  First, he empowered his followers to reclaim the nobility that was taken away from them.     

Second, Imam W. D. Mohammed instilled a motivation that, instead of reflecting a desire to achieve parity with another race, resonated with an inherent yearning to meet the standards that the Creator designed for all humanity.  “Black nationalism...[or] Black Muslimism is just a strategy to accomplish the real thing.”  The real thing is “answer[ing] the demands in my soul for respect to come for me and my people!” 

**He shaped you and then formed you beautifully (Qur'an, 40:64).

Top 10 Things I Will Miss about KL, Malaysia

Chinese New Year Decorations

10. Living in one of the wealthiest zip codes in the city. 

My first weeks here in Malaysia, my thoughts often turned to the criticisms made about immigrants to the U.S. Some of the remarks of African American Muslims whom I interviewed for my book were quite intense like this one: “Immigrants have come here and have reaped the benefits to the point that it has killed their Islam.  You come here for materialism, but you forget that you are Muslim, and you forget your responsibility to establish Allah’s din [Islam]. The immigrants should be putting forth more of an effort to utilize their resources towards the upliftment of the African American community.”

The African American community should be a priority because, according to this African American imam, “the most prominent spots to establish Allah’s din are those places where injustices and poverty exist.”

Our Condo Pool

My sentiments never exactly matched those of this outspoken imam; however, I admired those immigrant Muslims who did choose to live in African American neighborhoods or deliberately chose to connect with black people. And I continue to admire such people whom I highlight in my book, but now having been an immigrant in Malaysia, I better appreciate the struggles and choices of the average immigrant whose first priority is not to establish Islam or to fight against a certain injustice but to adjust to their new society and certainly do well financially. Why would they leave their home except to establish for their family their vision of a good, quality life?

I could never afford to live in an affluent neighborhood back home like the one I lived in here in KL, but the cost of living is cheaper here, and if you have a US salary or US savings, you can live among the rich. Given my fears of the things that come with low quality housing and the fear of the unknown about Malaysian living, I jumped at the chance to live in Mont Kiara, an expat area.

Chinese New Year

9. The lovely holiday decorations adorning the city for 7 months straight: Eid, Deepavali, Christmas, Chinese New Year.

8. Paying very little for health care. Without insurance, seeing a doctor only costs $6. And when it turned out that nothing was really wrong, they often let me go without a charge.  

The down side to this is that doctors prescribe way too many drugs here. However, I’ve never been one to follow the doctor’s orders. 

7. Muslims and non-Muslims share purity rituals: Everyone takes their shoes off when entering a home and bathrooms come with water hoses.

6. The lush landscape: the gardens, palm trees, fruits and flowers hanging low. Oooh, sounds like Paradise.

This photo was actually taken in Thailand, but I saw my first mango tree ever in Malaysia.

5. The popularity of rice, rice flour, and Australian wheat-free products makes it the best place to be for a gluten-free diet.

I came across other neat Australian products like goat-based infant formula, something I never found in the US but could be quite useful for babies allergic to cow's milk.

4. Prayer rooms at the mall and everywhere. Also, wudu stations in these prayer areas. 

No worrying about what people think when they see me washing my feet in a public bathroom. No praying in fitting rooms or other obscure places out of public view.

Dragon Fruit

3. Exotic, sweet fruits and fruit juices: Malaysian, Thai and Indian mangoes, dragon fruit, mangosteen, unordinarily sweet papaya and pineapple, watermelon juice, longan, and more.

2. Halal meat everywhere! 

1. Befriending people from all over the world.  

In high school, I memorized Margaret Walker’s poem "For My People," and recited it before public audiences. I love this poem. I occasionally recite it to my children with the same conviction and heart that I did almost twenty years ago.

Raising two African American boys in Atlanta, GA, I will continue to have a special regard for and sense of accountability to the struggles of black people in America but now I truly understand what it means to say that all of humanity are my people.

Yahya’s Malaysian "grandmother" is a sweet, generous Chinese woman who brought Yahya special treats. I had no association with Chinese and Japanese in the US.  Islam does not ordinarily connect me with them as it links me to Indians and other Asians with large Muslim populations in the U.S. 

In KL, however, they were my neighbors, the ones who smiled and greeted me and my boys on the elevator, at the playground and community center, at the food truck, and on the shuttle to the shopping plaza. They are now among my dearest friends.

I am forever grateful and truly transformed by my Malaysia experience. I now look forward to the next chapter.

Stay-at-Home Moms, Beauty Making, and More

There are no mommy wars here. In the expat community in Malaysia, all of the moms are stay-at-home (SAHM). The exceptions include those in business for themselves, but even they are not beholden to a 9 to 5.

Residence in KL gave me an opportunity to further test the waters as a stay-at-home mom. But place matters in the experience. The unique feature of my SAHM experience in KL is that I have connected with women from all over the world, literally.

Yahya's young ears have already had close encounters with several world languages--Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Mandarin, Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia, Hindi/Urdu, French, Farsi, Japanese, Russian--as he plays with children whose mothers converse with me in English, interrupting to remind or guide their children in their mother tongue.  

Connecting with other SAHMs, I've also discovered one of the more glorious aspects of staying at home: cultivating one's more artistic passions and talents. Two women especially brought this home for me at the same time that their friendships have helped me move beyond the boundaries of race that color my past.

The first is KJ. She represents the way in which I have connected with women from the United States whom I ordinarily would not have in the United States.

Yes, KJ is white. We met through our husbands who have both worked in the Islamic finance sector. Our last play date, I had the opportunity to visit KJ's home.    

Her condo reminded me of one of my favorite translations of the Arabic and Qur'anic word "muhsin," or "beauty maker" as rendered by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. The muhsinun are those of beautiful character and action. Shaykh Hamza's commentary inspired me to think of the muhsinun as those who make and create beauty in every manner. It inspired me to put extra effort in adorning my home, then in Chicago. 

"Malaysian Tea Party" - Representing main three ethnic groups there: Malay, Chinese, Indian 

KJ is an artist, an illustrator of children's books. The art that she selected or crafted for her walls demonstrated her aesthetic appreciation. The impressive collection of children books, what I found at the heart of her son's play room, demonstrated her grasp that the cultivation of beauty should begin at the earliest. 

I left KJ's home inspired again to be a beauty maker. I also thought how wonderful it was that she was blessed with the time and space to blossom as an artist. Something that she could not commit to if she worked a regular 9 to 5.

As I open myself to new possibilities, reflected in my newfound friendship with KJ, I admit that I am still easily drawn to the familiar, that is, black women.

But again, in this far land, that which seems familiar isn't at all. Here's where Anjelia enters. I first encounter her walking across the street from my condo. She is tall, coffee-complexioned, poised, and wears a natural afro puff that sits on her head as if to mark a queen. She is the only woman in Malaysia wearing this crown. 

We are both delighted to encounter the other. Strength and warmth together color her voice. She introduces her daughter, almond-complexioned, long, curly hair. 

Anjelia is from Brazil. She is married to a white man from Argentina. Her struggle with English is the earliest indication that we are black women from different worlds. I admire her ability to be different in this place. Perhaps she is my reflection.

The day I visited her home, it wasn't planned. "Come," she said, as we met on an afternoon stroll. The lobby of her condo was one of the finest, most tranquil on our block.

Pillows out of their jackets lie on her sofas wide enough to hosts several guests. She asked me to excuse the place as she quickly put cases on the pillows. They were the colors of the Brazilian flag. "I made them myself." My admiration for this woman grew.

When she showed me family photos, primarily of her white family, I couldn't get past the picture of her locking arms with her four sisters-in-law. This shows how far removed I am from black-white interracial couples in the United States, or black-white interracial friendships for that matter.

Blacks and whites are not separated in the same way as in the US, Anjelia tried explaining to me in her earnest English. While racism has its mark on Brazilian society, striking features of Brazil are the number of interracial marriages and the normalcy of its category mixed race.

Reared in a society in which black women are the least likely of any group, including black men, to marry interracially, I wondered what it would be like to see the world through Anjelia's eyes, racial lines blurred a degree, or several degrees, more than through my eyes.

Sipping on tea in Anjelia's living room, I noticed lovely paintings of a beach sunset and a flower garden. When I complimented them, she responded, "They are mine," in a manner both humble and proud at once. 

"You painted them?"

"In Chile, I met with a woman who taught me."

Later in her kitchen as I snacked on a buffet of papaya, avocado, and pistachios, she told me again, "Come." I followed her to the room across from the wet kitchen, most likely designed for the live-in maid. Anjelia had reinvented it as her sewing room, a large table covered with fabrics and other supplies fit snugly in the room.  Magazine pages of models on runways, black and white, splashed the walls.

"I made this handbag just yesterday." Totally impressed, I grabbed the bag to take a closer look. "How did you learn to make this?" She just smiled. She showed me more bags, the unconventional styles and fabrics gave away that they were customized.

"I love the handbags of the Japanese women. I want one so I made it myself."

I've also looked twice at the chic fashions of the Japanese women who dominate my condo, like the one in the photo at the top of this post.

As a stay-at-home mom in KL, I've also found some time to reconnect with my passion, and that is writing the stories of American Muslims. In the case of this blog, it has been my story, but I've also rediscovered my long-time desire to write about the beginnings of Islam in America for many, and it took a woman from a very different background to help me realize that it is something I must do.

In the last two months I've begun substantial work writing a book on the Nation of Islam. In graduate school, several of my term papers related to some aspect of the Nation of Islam, but my dissertation topic took me in a different direction.

However, almost all of the talks I give on the topic of Muslim women include an account of my mother's journey to Islam via the Nation, as does one of my publications, "Through Sunni Women's Eyes."

On my way to KL last summer, I received an email from a scholar in the UK inviting me to write a book with her on the Nation, and here I am on the other side of the world doing it. Google docs has made it all possible.

Twelve years ago as a young graduate student, if you told me that I'd be writing a book on the Nation with an Irish, non-Muslim woman, I would not have believed you. Back then, I was just starting to realize that black people were not the only ones writing about the Nation, and certainly not the only ones fascinated by it.

Everything comes full circle. I never imagined that all the way in Malaysia I'd return to my roots while connecting with others beyond my roots in such vast ways. What a treasure!  I am reminded of the Alchemist.

This I Believe

http://zleqha.blogspot.com/

That, with prayer, what is meant for you will not pass you by. Today at a mall in Kuala Lumpur, I saw a woman with a long, beautiful, elegant, dress and thought, I must get that for when I return to the U.S. But the woman was a few feet away and I was too busy with the boys to stop and ask where she got the dress from.

As she walked away with her friend, I said, "If it's meant for me, O Allah, please let me see her again to ask." I wasn't really counting on it, and it wasn't really a big deal, it was only a dress...but it was perfect for me. Two hours later, I went to the food court and decided to sit way in the back near the window so Yahya could have a nice view of the trains go by. It wasn't our usual seat. Normally we sit in the front.

About 10 minutes into our meal, I hear women friends chatting and laughing behind me. I turn around, and there is the woman! And this was no small mall, swarming with thousands of people.

She told me where to buy the dress online, zleqha.blogspot.com. Now I have to find the exact dress (though she has some other cool stuff on there), and figure out how to buy it. No job in KL!

Christmas in Malaysia

And I thought the decorations for Eid in Malaysia were something to write about! Is it me and I just don't get out during the Christmas season in the States, or are the mall decorations way more elaborate here in KL? I mentioned this to a German woman whose son Yahya played with on the playground.

"No, you're right. All of the holidays they make a big production of here."

I'm intrigued at how they create such pretty winter wonderlands in the tropics. "Ooh, look at the Gingerbread Man," I pointed out to Yahya, the protagonist of one of his favorite stories.

Now a parent, I can't help but think about how our first-generation Muslim parents did much to make us feel that we weren't missing out during the Christmas season in the States. I now wondered if Malaysian parents feel that their children's religious identity might be threatened by Santa Claus, the Gingerbread  Man, and plastic candy canes.

I doubt it because Hari Raya Aidilfitri still reigns supreme here. Nonetheless, I should ask my handful of Malaysian friends. I would hope that they share my sentiments that it's cool to be in a place where multiple religious holidays receive wide public display.

But while I celebrate this religious pluralism, I can't ignore that capitalism drives much of it.  First the Eid al-Fitri sales, then the Deepavali sales, and now the Christmas sales. But who's complaining about endless sales?

In all seriousness, though, I'm treading close to Malaysia's greatest political debate, that is, how to maintain the primacy of Islam as the official state religion while also safeguarding the rights and interests of the country's substantial religious minorities (40% of the population).

My Chinese real estate agent was the first to share with me concern that some of the religious bills introduced in parliament increasingly alienate non-Muslims. My hope is that the zealots will not prevail in the Malaysian government.


Rather the country will take lessons from the best achievements in Islamic civilization. From the literary renaissance in Islamic Spain to the Taj Mahal in Mughal India, various cultural and religious traditions collaborated and coalesced under Muslim rule.